Airfrov raises funding to let you buy stuff from overseas through international travelers

Singapore-based Airfrov has raised a pre-series A round of funding worth US$500,000, it announced today. The round is led by existing investor East Ventures and is joined by a number of angel investors, including Carro CEO Aaron Tan.

Airfrov is an online marketplace for people who like to shop stuff from overseas but don’t want to deal with cross-border shipping and international payments. Users list the items they want on the marketplace and people who travel abroad can choose to pick up said items and bring them back with them.

The startup uses an escrow account to hold payment until the item has been delivered. It receives a commission on every transaction.

CEO Cai Li says the team will use the funding to enhance the product and boost the startup’s dev team, hiring iOS and full stack developers. One of the goals is to build a smarter matching algorithm that will use the traveler’s expertise and delivery rate to better match them with buyers. The startup also seeks to help travelers group and send more items together by integrating courier services.

Airfrov claims to have 45,000 monthly active users on its marketplace. 3,500 travelers use the platform every month. Li says users’ annual spending has grown 6.3 times from 2015 to 2016, although he doesn’t give more specific figures. Over the same period, user numbers grew 4.3 times, he adds.

The startup last raised an undisclosed seed round from East Ventures in March 2016. It’s since expanded to Indonesia, where Li says it’s seeing double-digit monthly growth in the last six months.